Hi
My wife has just started setting up a business and wanted to also set up a web site to go with that business. Having a background in IT, software development, user interface design, etc. I thought this would be a good home project for me. After giving up on finding a useable (and free) web site editor and a fair amount of research (about 2 hours - my attention span) I decided on using Joomla. The positive comments and reports for this tool was overwhelming, I just had to try it out.
So far I am not regretting my decision.
My background is in real-time software development, unix/linux environments, C and C++ programing and X-windows, X-Lib and Motif development. My experience in the world of web development is nothing, although I am a heavy user. I was a bit daunted but confident when starting my foray into building a site on a hosted server. The installation of Joomla was a breeze. I managed to install and have it running in less than half an hour.
Now I am in the process of learning to use the admin tool and experimenting with content. I have even managed to install some new tempaltes and extensions (its so easy!). The next step is to jump into the world of PHP and to start creating a custom template to use for the new site.
I am sure I will have plenty of questions when I get into trouble, but so far it has been so easy and I am having fun.
Wish me luck!